Open Dental Forum

Just wondering if there has been anything happening on the Aussie front in the last couple of years.

Hicaps, our item numbers, FDI numbering, etc?

All help much appreciated!

FDI numbering has been in place for 10 years. There was a programmer who was working on Hicaps about a year ago. I just sent him an email asking for his status. We have more resources now, and we also happen to have an Australian staff member. We will at least contact Hicaps for the specs, and then we'll see about building the interface. If we do this, it will probably also include getting a local Australian phone number and keeping our call center open 24/7.

The programmer who had been working on it ran into some difficulty and also got busy with other things. Looks like it's up to us.

We have developed a fully functional HICAPS (Australian health insurance) module for the Australian branch of Open Dental that we maintain. We have not tested this under recent versions of Open Dental but can do so if there is interest. Our HICAPS module has extensive functionality that allows for HICAPS claims, reversals, quotations etc. EFTPOS and credit card functionality is also provided for.

As a side note we also have a fully integrated SMS appointment reminder module plus numerous other Australian specific enhancements and functionality.

Excellent. I've made some changes to our Australian page. Open Dental has existed for 10 years, and in all that time, not a single strong foreign distribution has been developed and maintained by another company. There are a number of countries where a half-hearted attempt has been made, but this Australian company may actually be the first solid foreign distro. That's fine with us, and we will slow down our efforts in Australia. We can't completely stop, but we certainly have enough to keep us busy over here in the US for a while.

To ultimosoftware: Can't you guys please get some screenshots and detail onto your website, especially for the Australian-specific features? Your website is so sparse that it makes me (and potential customers) question your resources and your competitiveness. Buyers won't buy without enough information.

jordansparks wrote:
To ultimosoftware: Can't you guys please get some screenshots and detail onto your website, especially for the Australian-specific features? Your website is so sparse that it makes me (and potential customers) question your resources and your competitiveness. Buyers won't buy without enough information.

Just started using ultimo dental, the oz version of od.

The HICAPS works brilliantly!

Jordan, thank you for the web site feedback it helped motivate a couple of changes. I thought I would update you on our recent work.

We have now released a new web site which will allow us to add new content in a much more timely manner including shortly, new screen shots. As we provide a range of services we have also launched a dedicated support portal for our Australian customers.

The HICAPS module is working very well in numerous sites. We are extending it's functionality and currently testing on-line Australian Medicare claims. This should go into the first test site in a couple of weeks. We are bringing our Australian version more in line with recent OD releases while streamlining our development process. We are confident this will allow faster development of more local Australian enhancements. We have also moved some of our code to plug-ins with the anticipation of submitting these once stable and if you wish to include them in OD releases. Still a work in progress though but one of many things we are working on. A priority and active project is also integration with the newly established Australian government E-health initiative.

On a side note we recently installed our first site in Tasmania (Southern tip of Australia) and Darwin (Northern tip of Australia). For those not familiar with Australia this is about a 4300 km (2671.9 miles according to google) distance between the two if you wish to drive + boat trip. Both were conversions from other systems and both included on-site training which is our preference.

I would also add that Australian version is not actually a version of real OD but as I understand it is 'customized' rejigged version and they don't provide individual services for Open Dental per se but for their own version .......so its a private version taken from OD